In December 1940 William Lyon Mackenzie King’s Liberal government had banned the import of American comic books, pulps, and “non-essential items” for the war’s duration. Unless you lived along the border there would be no Detective Comics, Action Comics, Adventure Comics, All-American Comics, More Fun Comics, or All-Flash Quarterly. There would be no Batman, Superman or Flash. Cyril Vaughan Bell, “a former Toronto sign painter” told Ross his Bell Features took full advantage of circumstances and “turned out a billioncomic books” between 1941 and 1946.

[4] Three Aces, No. 58

Near the end of the war, with sales slipping, Bell reprinted old issues, slapped new covers and titles on them, and shipped them to England to be sold. Alexander Ross made no mention of the other major entrepreneurs publishing comic books in Canada during the war years; Anglo-American Publishing, Hillborough Studio, Educational Projects Inc., and Maple Leaf Publishing on the West Coast.

Following
his new animated web series, Canada’s own iconic champion, Captain
Canuck gets the action figure kids have been looking for since his debut
in 1975 with a new release from Odeon Toys.

He’s
been on a postage stamp, even the cover of Time, but for decades,
Superman had one thing over Canada’s Superhero… an action figure.
Canadian toy maker Odeon toys in creative partnership with EMCE toys and
Big B Comics are righting that wrong. The 8 inch tall figure which will
retail for $24.99 will have the look and feel of a toy released when
the first issue of Captain Canuck, by creator Richard Comely, hit news
stands in 1975.

“We
were looking for an iconic Canadian character for our first release,
and I can think of none better than Captain Canuck ” said Sam Noir,
project coordinator at Odeon. He added “I was one of those kids who
looked for a Canuck figure on toy shelves in the 1970s, I must admit,
we’re pretty excited to be doing this.”

In December 1940, Canada implemented a ban on luxury goods, including comic books, imported from the United States during WWII. At the time, comic books were only a few years old, with Superman the best known character, appearing in 1938. Children everywhere were devastated. Unless they were the lucky few who went on vacations to the US, in which case they turned a tidy profit trading off their Superman comics for loose change.